If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

Originally Posted by hpm08161947

[/QUOTE=Kamon Reynolds;1056764]

Let's take this notion to it's extreme. Pretend the pendulum has swung all the way across the arc. Organic Farms are the Law of the Land. How much of the world could we feed? Would the world population need to be cut in half? What is the maximun size organic farm that one man can tend?

Is the Malabar Farm the answer.....

There is a common misperception that organic practices are less productive than conventional practices.

Why, in any case, would an organic farm be limited to one man? Malabar had lots of people working it.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

"Experts" have been painting doom and gloom scenarios about our capacity to feed the planet's increasing population for, at the very least, centuries. And yet, here we are, over seven billion people...

Food production (and world hunger) is, first and foremost, an economic problem. Arable land is unevenly distributed. Capital and means of production is unevenly distributed. Agronomic expertise is unevenly distributed. Population is unevenly distributed. Logistical expertise and capacities are unevenly distributed.

When farmers keep using the same old practices, no matter what, because that's the only thing they know, that's waste. When farmers have great fields, but no machinery to work it, that's waste. When farmers have great yields, but no warehouse to preserve it, that's waste. When farmers have great grains, but no fertilizers to boost growth, that's waste. When great lands are turned into housing neighborhood, that's waste. There is a LOT of waste in the world. And the answer to it, and world hunger, is not potential, it's $. You'd think that countries with a lot of hunger would waste less than us perfect-food-obsessed north-americans, right? Wrong. Waste is atrocious in third-world countries. It just wastes elsewhere. It is wasted because, for the same amount of seeds, they will get a lot less yields and require a lot more labor. It is wasted because they lack the funds to invest in warehouses to keep the food in controlled atmospheres. Because the distribution networks are inferior.

Conventional or organic has nothing to do with it. All farmers in the world could be organic and we could still significantly increase global food yields. After all, there is a vast array of alternatives to synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. In most cases, even the local small-scale organic hippy north-american farm will significantly outproduce third-world farms. We've got the best seeds. The means to analyze our soils, to analyze our compost and manure. We've got the machinery to work the ground properly. The fertilizers to optimize growth. The agronomists to scientifically evaluate best practices. The vast array of pesticides, both organic and not. Refrigerated trucks. The capacity to find and ship to far-away customers via the internet for premium prices. The tunnels to protect crops from bad weather. And so on.

I don't think many people realize just how productive our farms have become, and how third-world farms could very well obtain the same levels of productivity if only they had access to the same resources and markets. There is plenty of room for global production to rise, with or without GMO crops.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

I know... on one acre with one man tending it.... one can produce great yeilds... but that is not the way feeding the world works.

But Malabar Farm was owned by one man.... I realize there would be employees.

Well actually, in the rest of the world, particularly the third world, small farms are more often the rule than the exception.

Conventional agriculture is highly dependent on very cheap energy. I'm not sure how much longer that can go on. This cheap energy allows one farmer to cultivate a much greater acreage than he could with less energy-intensive methods, but this approach makes conventional agriculture extremely vulnerable, as well as out of the reach of most of the world's farmers.

I love the books about Malabar Farm, even though Bromfield was a fiction writer, and surely embellished his accounts. But Malabar is still beautiful today, and a testament to the basic notion that farmers should feed the soil, and let the soil feed the plants. On my last visit, however, I was saddened to see that his neighbors were still planting corn in rows right down the fall line, and that corn was poor and yellow. He must be spinning in his grave.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

Originally Posted by Dave Burrup

I could spray roundup to control weeds instead of hoeing them.
Dave

Be careful what you wish for. I recently attended a farmer's symposium in which the co-op agents were talking about roundup tolerant pigweed, and that it was causing a substantial problem for produce farmers, who don't even have access to roundup ready crops. This is one of the dark sides of GMO crops.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

If the non GMO guys are spraying round up, how is that only GMO's fault the weeds are resistant? Overuse of roundup on RR crops may have accelerated the issue, but a proper farm uses a rotation, so hit it with something else.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

Originally Posted by JRG13

If the non GMO guys are spraying round up, how is that only GMO's fault the weeds are resistant? Overuse of roundup on RR crops may have accelerated the issue, but a proper farm uses a rotation, so hit it with something else.

It isn't just naturally evolving resistance to Roundup. Actual genetic material is migrating from GMO crops to noxious weeds. This is a fairly ominous development, and one that we were assured would not happen.

I think a lot of farmers are starting to feel like they've been played for chumps. Not a happy sensation.

Says David Ehrenfield, Professor of Biology at Rutgers University, "Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers"

Well, he's probably a commie. But if you haven't heard much about this stuff, it's worth Googling around a little. It's costing farmers serious money.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

Originally Posted by rhaldridge

It isn't just naturally evolving resistance to Roundup. Actual genetic material is migrating from GMO crops to noxious weeds. This is a fairly ominous development, and one that we were assured would not happen.
y.

You know every time you catch a viral infection , you have a possibility of experiencing a transgenic experience. Not a good thing, but it happens naturally, no matter what we do. If you get lucky, it could be a great thing...

Ian, it's no joke. No-till systems that formerly relied on Roundup just aren't working very well anymore in many areas.

Don't these guys with weed problems ever alternate herbicides? Alternate fields and crops? Plow or till every few years. Weeds do not seem to be major problem.

"If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve."
- W.T.S.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

Originally Posted by Haraga

Ian, I love reading the posts from the keyboard farmers.

A great many people seem to feel that if it works on my .25 acre organic garden then it should work in Agribusiness. The difference between .25 acres and 4000 acres of soybeans is far more than just "Scale". I wonder if they realize how much time is spent by the average farmer hedging on the commodities market? I am pretty sure that most of these well-meaning city people are convinced that the worlds food problems could be solved by a simple conglomeration of these .25 acre organic gardens.

"If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve."
- W.T.S.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

Maybe. If they would work. There are lots of Americans who are American'ts. They don't know how to work. I don't know how to work. Not like the migrant workers I know of. Not like a number of beekeepers I know of.

Do you really think that there are enough people like my Uncle Gordon and Grandpa Porter who worked a 200 acre farm in Iowa last generation?

Besides, the land is worth too much for anyone to be able to buy and work such a small piece of productive farm land. Most places. And it also keeps getting covered up by concrete and asphalt for parking lots and highways.

Some of the once most productive crop land, bottom land, in Cherokee County, NC got covered up by a 4 lane highway right down the middle of the valley, instead of along the side which would have left most of it available for cultivation. Happens all of the time.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

Originally Posted by hpm08161947

A great many people seem to feel that if it works on my .25 acre organic garden then it should work in Agribusiness. The difference between .25 acres and 4000 acres of soybeans is far more than just "Scale". I wonder if they realize how much time is spent by the average farmer hedging on the commodities market? I am pretty sure that most of these well-meaning city people are convinced that the worlds food problems could be solved by a simple conglomeration of these .25 acre organic gardens.

Of course they could feed the world. Small farms are more productive, even if less efficient. Just because, as a society, the USA ended up concentrating food production in the hands of a very marginal portion of its population, does not mean that this is the only model that works.

Less efficient farms may produce more costly farms, due to lack of scale economies, greater labor needs, and higher capital : profit ratios, but as stated in my previous post, this just leads to higher prices, not less crops. Small farms feed most countries. And their poverty is usually more a result of "developed" country protectionism and dumping than of their own performances.

There certainly are a number of advantages to large farms, namely affordable food, but to claim that it is the only way the world can be fed is quite a leap. And don't forget that these huge farms rely on the fact that in North-America, fossil fuels are cheaper than labor, and that the government heavily subsidizes the industry. When fossil fuel prices will rise enough, and if government subsidies cease, that huge farm agribusiness model will crumble.

Re: Farmers Abandoning GMO Seeds And The Reason Will Surprise You

I think one of the reasons you big farmers are defending what you do is.....what would you do if you could not drive around in a big tractor that drives itself. you don't really care that your feeding milllions of people cheap food because why would that be something you would be proud of. I bet if this generation of farmers had to farm like the farmers of the early 1900s you probably would not even want to farm. do you big farmers ever think about how easy you have it. you always say we don't get it. where does all this food come from. well take away your tractor and your chems and your hybrid seed and how good of a farmer would you be?? I can only hope that cheap food goes away sooner rather than later. do you know what happens to people that eat cheap food. they don't get smarter I can tell you that for sure. and just for the record..im not very smart. I work hard to make up for what my brain may lack. I do know that some one that works hard to eat is far better off than some one that eats for free. there are way to many people on this earth eating for free.